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Friday, February 6, 2015

That Feeling You Get

So today is Secret Subject Swap--one of my favorite blog challenges. Here's how it works: For this week, 15 brave bloggers signed up and submitted a secret prompt. We were each given a prompt of our own about two weeks ago. Today, we simultaneously divulge our interpretations of the prompts we were given. No one knows who got what or what the other prompts are, so today's the big reveal, so to speak. I'll include links to all the other bloggers at the end so you can comb through and see how it goes. Happy reading!

I also firmly believe that many an individual confuses lust for love which is the only thing that can really explain why so many people in my Facebook feed or even in life around me seem to fall in love on the first date and fall out of it just as quickly before moving on to the next love of their lives.

You can desire someone, lust for them, feel a yearning to know them on both an intimate and carnal level when you see them; I do believe that. It happens to me often when I see a chubby, tattooed, and bearded man. I shamelessly objectify, stare slack-jawed, and often do triple or quadruple takes depending on the beard in question, but that’s not love. Love is far too complicated and immeasurable to happen in an instant like that, to be based on looks and first impressions alone.

Love builds over time as you get to know a person and figure out who they are. The intimacy of the details shared with one another about your life journeys bond you. The other person’s quirks become endearing even if still annoying. There’s a passion in the knowing, and with romantic love, there’s a passion in exploring each other’s bodies as well as minds. Love is not something that snaps perfectly into place in the blink of an eye because it’s based on who that person is--the past, the present, personality, character flaws, hopes, dreams, passions, goals, idiosyncrasies, hobbies, and needs. Saying that love is so one dimensional that it can happen on sight alone really does a disservice to the state of truly loving someone, of sacrificing for them, worrying, caring, and being their champion in good times and bad.

Perhaps there are some mothers who contend they fell in love with their children on sight, but that’s not the truth of the matter either, not really. That’s certainly not the way it worked for me. I grew to love my child well before he made his first appearance in this world, and it didn’t happen the first time I saw his tiny form on an ultrasound screen either. All I really felt then was fear and a little awe. As I tracked his growth and what was happening to him, picked his name out, bought him little clothes, things began to change. With every kick I felt and every book I read to my growing belly, the stronger I felt. The love was there before I ever saw his tiny fingers and itsy bitsy toes. The bond built over time as my body sacrificed to nourish his. With every craving and maddeningly exhausting day, the love grew and continued to grow to astronomical proportions. His ruddy little cheeks and fawn crown of hair only added to it. He was perfect when he fell asleep on my chest the first time, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been born with any number of defects—I would have loved him all the same because that love was made before my eyes ever landed on his tiny, pink form.

No matter how you look at it, love takes time to grow. It’s like a garden that way. It needs care, time, and a little TLC. It needs to be nourished and given your attentions. And when you do all those things you might get lucky and get a good harvest…or you might do all the right things and still get half-formed ears of corn. Love is fickle that way. And that’s okay. It’s worth the work and the gamble. The good times are worth enduring the bug-ravaged squash vines that make you fall to your knees in the middle of the rows and cry out of frustration or toss your spade in the ditch out of anger. You might even scream to the skies that you’ll NEVER PLANT ANOTHER FUCKING GARDEN AGAIN, but you don’t mean it. It’s too blissful being surrounded by the scent of tomato plants popping a couple of still dirty cherry tomatoes in your mouth while you’re covered in sweat and smiling in the fading sunlight of the day.

So, I do believe you can get a tingle, something electric that makes you want to know a person on sight, but that’s not love, and that’s okay. Because love is worth the work. The bounty of the harvest you get when you get love right is worth the blood, sweat and tears. If it were any easier, it wouldn't feel half as good when you succeed.

10 comments:

How utterly profound. I think lust is the animal in us. The instant attraction. When you're primitive man or ground hog, and you are attracted to a potential mate, you have to act fast, because there's hungry things in the food chain above you. If you want to propagate, best get to it.

But humans, we have that instant lust, but then we stick around for the good stuff. Or find someone else on Facebook to get googly over and see if it happens all over again.

About Me

I write, knit (sort of), love music, dance when no one is looking, snort when I laugh, talk about sex, consider myself a feminist, snore, sigh heavily when I see a bearded man, and make some badass desserts.